1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a network configuration management apparatus, network configuration management program and a network configuration management method for managing the configuration of a network that is composed by connecting a plurality of network devices and displaying the configuration on a display screen. A network configuration management apparatus, a network configuration management program and a network configuration management method according to the invention can find applications in the field of maintaining a network and monitoring the services of a network and also failures that can disrupt network communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network configuration management apparatus for managing the physical and logical connections of the network devices (routers, servers, switches, PCs and so on) that constitute a network are known. Such apparatus are typically adapted to display the configuration and the running condition of the network on the display screen of a display apparatus such as a monitor as network map.
In the trend of forming large-scale networks in recent years, it is difficult to grasp all the network devices by means of such a network configuration management apparatus if all the network devices are displayed as a single network map on the display screen of a monitor because of the limited display area of the display screen.
For this reason, techniques for dividing the network and displaying a part of the network have been developed. For example, there are known techniques proposed to improve the operating efficiency of the user interface for displaying a network map by displaying partial information relating to the devices that are objects of management by means of the devices out of the information necessary for managing the configuration of the network (see, inter alia, Patent Document 1: Jpn. Pat Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 9-237236).
With such a technique, map information including information on the symbols to be displayed on the network map and identification information on network maps of lower orders corresponding to each symbol is stored in a map information storage means in advance and a map symbol relocation means retrieves the information on the symbol to be displayed on the network map of a lower order to be deleted from the map information storage means according to a relocation command transmitted from a relocation execution control means and relocates the symbol on a network map of a higher order to reconfigure the network map of the higher order, while deleting the network map of the lower order. Then, a network map display processing means executes a process of displaying a network map that reflects the reconfigured network map.
However, such a technique is based on an idea of dividing a network map and hence does not allow a person to visually recognize the entire network on a single monitor screen. Then, the person cannot grasp/monitor the network configuration globally and efficiently.